Like this:

One of the things I’ve always hated is the need for general classification. Systematically we are forced to fit in and strip away bit by bit of who we are to fit into their structure. To play by rules we didn’t agree to abide by imposed on us day one. As a young boy I realized this early. I never liked this feeling of constraint. It first sank in when I started school. My 1st grade teacher was making us fill out census forms. Looking at the questions made me cringe. I politely raised my hand and asked for assistance. I didn’t understand the question. Or, rather, the need to be narrowed down. My teacher was a nice lady and trying her best to help me out.

Like this:

The thing with religions and cultures is that they all leave a clue. The gods are creatures much like us. There was a disagreement, things were splintered and we were created. Much like an arms race. Also, much like an arms race, we became out of control and could ultimately shift the balance to what they all fear.

Total extinction.

If it sounds too familiar or too relatable it’s because the clues were there all along.

It all echoes through on different levels and different planes. We sense it but we don’t admit it. We read it wrong. We only look at what we can read as we see it. We only hear and feel what we want. We try to translate it, but we can’t. Because we aren’t doing it at all levels. Man doesn’t want to accept the unfathomable cause of what their purpose is.

How it all connects.

What the gods fear is meeting their maker. Waking up a long slumbering and cold reality that they too fucked up. And in creating man, a constantly evolving creature that learned it doesn’t need god. Or any god for that matter. A perfect doomsday device in the ultimate cold, cold war. And instead of using man to sway the balance, maybe man can shift the balance to something steady. We don’t have to follow anyone’s agenda and we can all coexist as long as we acknowledge each other respectfully.

Like this:

Late night with a friend. Both of us got a bad case of the sads. We share a few beers and some weed before we start to head out on our different ways. I walk with my friend to the train station which is right near a taco cart I like. I had the munchies and I hadn’t eaten much that day. The food is great at this spot. But you’re gonna pay the cost in the morning.

As we roll up to the taco cart there is a young couple giving the vendor shit over the prices. The small girl looks at me and starts to rant about his prices. “8.50 a taco! This is bullshit!” As a chef, I’m offended already. The guy’s prices are fair and his food game is tight. I point that it’s actually 3.50 a taco. She and her man get more pissed. I had been fumbling for my pocket for small bills as I had just been paid. I like to have everything in play when I deal with late night food carts. No telling what could happen. My dumb ass pulls a crisp Ben Franklin. I’m pissed at myself for that. I know what’s coming. The dude notices that and makes a comment “Rich Brooklyn motherfuckers like to just throw their money away”. I politely mention I am from the Bronx and I’m only on this side of Brooklyn for work.

The young man goes into shaved ape mode and proceeds to tell me how he is from Long Island. Shit is no joke out there. I look at him and tell him I get it. I know the terrain. But I grew up in the South Bronx (and the slums of Atlanta, but I’m not looking for conversation), I’m not a rich kid. Instead of getting the clue that I’m not some fucking hipster and to chill, he gets more excited. So I cut it cold and tell him that I am no mood for his tough guy talk and I would just like to order a fucking taco. He freezes for a second and then storms off to his car in a fit. I can hear his tantrum and I can tell he may do something stupid.

Casually my friend, who had been in the background the whole time, and I switch gears and get ready for a bad possibility. There’s that uncomfortable silence, like the one before two dogs fight, and everyone can feel it. My friend and I bask in it. The girl is listening in to see if we’ll talk shit. We do. Just enough to make the point that this isn’t a game to us. It’s what we do. The cook makes her order fast, she pays and leaves. Everyone gives it a second. It’s the tipping point. Will our friend get stupid?

He doesn’t.

In the end he drives off in a similar fashion to his tantrum. The mood has returned to a more lifted tone. My friend, who actually is a Brooklyn kid, laughs. I had pulled my BX card hard and cut him with it. I just look at him, “Real recognizes real and I don’t see him on the charts” I mutter.

More laughter.

“All city is all 5 boroughs” he says.
“Exactly” I reply.

With that we exchanged good byes. We both had felt better than we started. I was off to eat a burrito while I walked to a cheap Uber spot after a long shift in a kitchen and he was off to go on a graffiti raid. No cheap imitations or trick spelling. Just two New Yorkers just being New Yorkers on a Wednesday night.

Like this:

Let’s get it very clear. I have a drug problem. I would like to lie about that, honestly. I may not totally admit it. But I’ve definitely got one and pretty much always had one. But I’ll always admit that life is better when you’re fucked up. It’s not to say I do drugs all the time. It ain’t that bad. But I’m always down to do them and when I’m not on them I certainly miss them.

Though I’ve steered from some of the more serious shit like Crack or Heroin, I can’t say I haven’t always avoided the hard stuff. I guess I started the whole thing ass backwards. I was doing shrooms and acid before I was sipping whiskey and, sadly, I most definitely was doing lines of coke before I discovered the wonders of marijuana.

Go big or go the fuck home.

I didn’t mind pills, but they were never my thing. I’ll admit they are fun, but I consider them a good consolation prize to an injury. Or, the perks of living fast. No percocette jokes there folks. That shit will kill me. I got an allergy to codeine.

I even enjoyed making bad narcotic decisions. Though those were also special occasions and usually controlled experiments. I mean who doesn’t want to drink a forty of Old Gold with your buddies in a parking lot one high school afternoon after donating blood to later eat a tab of ecstasy and a 10 strip of LSD? Or smoke a bowl of weed while tripping on shrooms, get a couple of beers in, nurse a 20 bag of coke, enjoy a snack spread and do fun stuff like play video games or movies for the first few hours to only later to get weird and queue up some self depreciating level of porn and masturbate while huffing poppers till you pass out in your bed cock in hand on your first day off in weeks. Both, coincidentally, were weeknights. Decades went between.

Like I said, it ain’t that bad.

It ain’t that often either. Except booze. That was a constant, sadly. If there is truth to anything I write, ever, it’s that alcohol is the biggest gateway drug known to man. Coke was another bad habit that I picked up and it would come and go in phases. Late teens and again from my mid to late 30’s. While it is a fun drug, and many of my adventures involved it, it’s most definitely an asshole drug. If you doubt me, think of the type of people you’ve met while doing it or perusing for a minute and get back to me. Or even take a second to think of the shit you’ve said, thought or done while on it.

Shame on you too, motherfucker.

Pot was discovered later in life. I always hated that my friends scrambled around looking for it when we were supposed to be doing other shit. Regrettably, I wish I had started smoking the stuff earlier. I probably wouldn’t have done half the shit I’ve done if I had been toking earlier in life. I like it a lot and it has a medicinal value that applies well to me. It was what I had been looking for all along. It’s probably my last vice.

I never was one to go too balls deep, though I didn’t fuck around either. I never borrowed money to do it or compromised my bills. Though I can’t say the same for my savings. That doesn’t mean I would say no if you were treating either. I always maintained an ethic of trying to be as generous as my friends with anything I ever had. Unless my extinction agenda was set to high. Then it was best to let me play my hand through and let me cash out when I damn well please. I kept a budget. Or I’d sell some of the fat off my record collection to sustain it. I mean, what good is a record collection is it ain’t gonna get you money, pussy or drugs anyways?

Once there was a young nose goblin who feared the outdoors. When pressured to leave he would say “What for? It’s comfy here. Why shall I go forth? It’s dreary and gloomy. The people hate us so! They bind us in tissue and toss us in trash. They flush us in toilets and wipe us on sleeves. They fling us on strangers and claim that we carry disease. There’s nothing out there for me, I’ll stay, if you please.”

Great gusts of winds and large fleshy probes would could not pry this goblin from his big comfy nose. No matter the struggle, he never gave in. No matter the cost, the goblin would win. He was rooted deep in the depths within. In the thicket of nose hairs far from where any finger could reach.

“I’ll leave when I’m ready! I’ll leave when I please! I leave when I feel like it, no matter your pleas. This is my home born and raised and I’ll remain here till my last dying day. My time is short lived, regardless the course, so deal with the discomfort. My life span is sparse. I’ll vacate the premise when I’m dull and I’ve withered. I’ll go out with a bang, not like a slug and slither.” And with the outside he never did mingle. Till he gave up the fight and dropped down like a tired old shingle.

Like this:

They say “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” as an uplifting statement when you’ve had a brush with death or when you’ve had an accident. Maybe even when you’ve just gone through a raw ordeal. It makes perfect sense. The more incidents that occur, the keener you get (hopefully) and you try not to repeat any mistakes.

I, on the other hand, say “Better luck next time”. I figure the Grim Reaper is getting pretty fed up with my wily antics and last minute get-a-ways, so I encourage him to try a little harder. I’d hate for him to get mad at me and take it personal. When I take shit personally I have a tendency to hurt the other person more. It’s a normal human reaction. So it makes perfect sense to show some encouragement and hope that your retirement package is something lavish and glorious rather than something slow and painful.

It’s simple math really:

Dying in bed banging a beautiful woman >; Dying from dysentery in the middle of a desert.

Or…

Having a mediocre life, heavy in debt due to lack of insurance, the wife stopped loving you years ago and your kids want to cash in on insurance as cancer ravages your body and you pray for death to come quickly <; Going down in a hail of bullets after a heroic battle that changed the course of history because, although you are about to die, you somehow managed to save the world and people are going to name their babies after your amazing ass.

What would be even worse is if death got frustrated and gave up on you. You outfox him and live forever. That would seem ideal at first. But you get to watch everything and everyone you love die. Your body may betray you or you sustain a serious injury that you may have to live with for an eternity. Imagine being in an accident that cuts you in half and you have to spend forever with no legs. Or the world blows up and you float in space forever like a lost meteor. These are terrible scenarios I never want to experience. Which is more reason to encourage death to practice and put me in a first class coffin.